MARCH 2003

Using Online Premium Services (OPS) with Toolkit 4

Getting Started with Online Premium Services (OPS)

This article assumes that you've created an account at the NAIC web site, and have access to OPS through your individual membership or OPS subscription.

First, we'll open Toolkit and make sure we have version 4.0.15 or higher.

With Toolkit open, click on Help | About Investor's Toolkit and look for a number next to the Build Version. It should be 4.0.15 or higher.

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Figure 1. Click on Help, then About Investor's Toolkit ...

If the version number listed isn't 4.0.15 or higher, click on the TK Update button on the button bar. This will start the automatic updater for Toolkit. The CD-ROM for the program will be required to complete the update, so be sure to have it handy.

Once we've verified that we have the correct version, we need to set up our OPS account information so that Toolkit can access data from the web site.

In Toolkit, under Options | Preferences | File Locations, click on Select Data Subscription.

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Figure 2. Click on Options then Preferences.

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Figure 3. Click on the File Locations tab, then on Select Data Subscription button on the right.

Then with the drop down, select NAIC Online Data Files.

Figure 4. Select NAIC Online Datafiles from the drop down menu. If you don't see that option, follow the instructions above on updating Toolkit to version 4.0.15 or higher.

From that window, enter the email used to create your account at www.better-investing.org and the password used on the account.

Figure 5. Enter your email address and password in the fields on the form. I've used mine as an example.

Click Ok, then Ok again. Now it's ready to use.

So, from File | Import Company | From Subscribed Data, enter a ticker, click Ok or Use It, and data will be pulled directly from the web site.